Redefining what it means to be a “nonlawyer.”

I’ve written (quite a long time ago now it seems, but it was only just last Spring) about the unfortunate nature of lawyers calling people who aren’t lawyers “nonlawyers” – rather than referring to them in a less condescending fashion such as “regular people,” for example. But, I still do it all the time, so I’m little more than a hypocrite at the moment on this particular issue. I will admit that usually the context of the discussion — especially if it is about legal ethics where the ethics rules repeatedly make reference to that term — can make it harder to avoid saying/writing it, but that’s not really the best of excuses.

Thus, the best way to eradicate the mildly offensive use of the terms would be to repurpose the word with a new definition.

Nonlawyer: n. someone who pretends to be a lawyer but actually isn’t one.

There would be two substrata of nonlawyers under this new definition: (1) a person who used to be allowed to practice law (see also “lawyer”), but who lost that right, and then continued to act as if they were still a lawyer; and (2) a person who was never actually licensed to practice law at all but have acted as if they were in dealing with other people.

In my reading pile from March, I find an instance of each of these two types.

Coming in the first category would be this New York nonlawyer who might be a real-life spoiler alert for fans of Better Call Saul (though can’t really say a true “spoiler” alert as much as speculation; I’m just guessing how/why James McGill ultimately has to take on the name Saul Goodman). Most recently, Jay Lipis was disbarred in New York in March 2016 after he admitted that, during a time that he was suspended from the practice of law in Massachusetts, he continued to practice law but did so under a fake name – Jeffrey Kriger. While still serving his suspension in Massachusetts, he went to work for his old personal injury firm:

as an unpaid “settlement consultant” reviewing files, valuing cases, determining demand amounts, negotiating settlements with insurance adjusters, and communicating with clients about settlement offers, without adequate supervision. Moreover, in conversations with insurance adjusters, the respondent at times falsely identified himself in order to conceal his identity as a suspended attorney, and at other times falsely identified himself as an attorney or failed to correct any misunderstanding that he was an attorney at the law firm

Fitting into the second category would be Kimberly Kitchen. Although her name actually sounds like a pseudonym, she wasn’t lying about her name… just about being a lawyer … for a decade. In addition, to “practicing law” for almost 10 years before being caught, she also managed to serve as the president of a county bar association in Pennsylvania before being found out. In March 2016, she was convicted of forgery, unauthorized practice of law, and felony records tampering.

There are, actually, a surprising number of people falling into this second category, and their existence (and short-to-medium term success) often says more about how lax law firms can be about doing background checks on the lawyers they hire than about why someone — with a seemingly infinite number of possible things to pretend to be — would choose being a lawyer.

Ms. Kitchen’s case, however, does not seem to be one where it is obvious that the law firm that hired her (at least the last one to do so and that was making her partner in April 2014 when the fraud came to light) failed to do sufficient due diligence, as NBC News reported back when the criminal charges were brought against her that she:

allegedly forged numerous documents attesting that she was a licensed attorney, including an attorney’s license for 2014, supposed bar examination results, supposed records of her law school attendance and a check purporting to show she’d paid her registration fees.

While there may seem like there were a number of available avenues where her deception could have been ferreted out given that she didn’t go about fabricating a nondescript background:

According to her resumé, she graduated summa cum laude from Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh and had taught trust and taxation law at the Columbia University School of Law.

Yet, as the CBS news report on her conviction makes clear, she even forged an email from Duquesne to make it appear she had attended there.